Some Observations From General Musharrafâ€™s Emergency Imposition Speech To The Nation

By Ilyas Hasan Choudry, MMNS

There is a saying in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, which is: â€œAa Bael Mujhae Marâ€ Meaning Bull Come & Hit Me: I have heard Musharraf has banned satire in Pakistan under this Emergency Rule: This writing of mine may look satirical in places, but it is a serious satireâ€¦

I was going through the transcript of General Pervez Musharrafâ€™s recent speech to the Pakistani Nation on the imposition of emergency, and discovered at various places Musharraf is asking for trouble and is calling upon the bull to hitâ€¦

Letâ€™s go through a few of those: Musharrafâ€™s words will be presented within brackets { }:

{My dear brothers and sisters! In the past few months, the situation in Pakistan has been changing swiftly and I would like to talk frankly about it.. The first thing is that extremism and terrorism are at their peak. At this time, suicide bombings are happening all over the country. Whatever happened in Karachi, followed by the incidents in Rawalpindi, Sargodha, their intensity has increased all over the country. Extremists are roaming freely without let or hindrance in the country, and are not afraid of the law enforcing agencies. In fact, there is hardly any fear of the law enforcing agencies left. In the Frontier province, a lot was already going on and we have been already dealing with it. Its impact has also reached the settled areas and now we will also have to tackle the situation in the southern districts. But the sad thing is that extremism has also spread to Islamabad, the heart of Pakistan, the capital of Pakistan, and the people are extremely worried about it. These extremists are taking the writ of the state in their own hands and want to have a government within the government. And the biggest thing is that these extremists want to foist their own religious ideas, their obscurantist view of Islam, on moderate people. In my view, they are throwing a direct challenge to Pakistanâ€™s sovereignty. This is a very dangerous situation of extremism and terrorism.}

Now the plus point for Musharraf since the 911 attacks on USA have been his pleas and promises to the west that he is doing the best job in the war on terror: But here suddenly he accepts all of his failures and the picture he has portrayed by even mentioning Islamabad is under attack: Those who would love to interpret this in their favor can now easily say that Pakistan can not do it alone and needs outside forces to enter and assist, a situation which no country would like to enter into, especially if that country has a nuclear weapon: But here and in many other places in the speech in a similar fashion Musharraf has clearly said: â€œAa Bael Mujhae Marâ€â€¦

Now another part from of Musharraf speech: {To the critics and idealists against this action, I would like to say, please do not expect or demand your level of democracy which you learned over a number of centuries. We are also trying to learn and we are doing well – Please give us time. Please also do not demand and expect your level of civil rights, human rights, civil liberties, which you learned over the centuries. We are trying to learn and we are doing very well also. Please give us time.}

At one point in the speech, Musharraf talked about Pakistanâ€™s sovereignty (as given earlier): When the President is making a speech to the Nation, why does he have to be so apologetic to the world: Why in a speech to his Nation, is he telling the world he will not give full rights to his own Nation? As such, he is asking for the world to really place pressure on him and secondly this way he has lost his credibility as a leader: The saddest part is that when he talks about democracy, in a philosophical sense, that may be fine as democracy can be varying for different countries: But then he talks about different levels of human rights–this is wrong, since the basic human rights come from God and not from man: Yes â€“ Civil Rights may have been made by men, but not the human rights â€“ â€œAa External Bael & Aa Internal Bael Mujhae Marâ€…

Last but not the least, Mushrraf really hit the nail in the coffin here: {I would at this time venture to read out an excerpt of President Abraham Lincoln, especially to all my listeners in United States. As an idealist, Abraham Lincoln had one consuming passion during the time of supreme crisis and this was to preserve the Union because the Union was in danger. Towards that end, he broke laws, he violated the Constitution, he usurped arbitrary power he trampled individual liberties. His jurisdiction was necessity and explaining his sweeping violation of constitutional limits, he wrote in a letter in 1864 and I quote: â€œMy oath to preserve the constitution imposed on me, the duty of preserving by every indispensable means that government, that nation of which the constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the constitution? By general law, life and limb must be protected. Yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assume this ground and now avow it.â€}

Again for those who want to interpret differently, huge grounds been provided: One thing Musharraf said in the speech that what ever he has done in eight years seems to be vanishing now: So people thought he is taking Pakistan back to 1999: But No: He is showing a picture of American Civil War of 1860s, taking us way back almost 145 years back: Now Abraham Lincoln said all this in between the Civil War (1861-1865): Should the world then not interpret that Pakistan is well into or on the way to Civil War; her Nuclear Assets can get into wrong hands: Does this not give legitimacy to an invasion: â€œAa External Bael & Aa Internal Bael Mujhae Marâ€…